This relates to a connector for electronic components, such as integrated circuits and, in particular, to a device for providing additional connections to such components while they are mounted on circuit boards, cards or the like.
Such electronic components typically comprise a body containing the circuitry of the component and a plurality of legs or pins which extend out of the body (see FIG. 1). The pins provide the means for supplying power to the component, input signals to the component and output signals from the component. The components are inserted or mounted on a circuit board which provides the electrical interconnection to still other components on the same or different circuit boards or even in other devices. Connections between circuit boards are often made by providing along one edge of each circuit board flat-conductive contacts called "fingers". The fingers act as male connectors for insertion into slots and the interconnection between the circuit boards is provided by interconnecting the slots in which the individual circuit boards are mounted. Another way for providing electrical input/output connections is to physically provide input/output contacts along an edge of the circuit board and permanently attach a connector to the circuit board so that the connector makes electrical contact with the input/output contacts on the circuit board. For example, one-half of a ribbon cable connector can be permanently mounted, such as by soldering, in conductive through-holes along the edge of the circuit board. The other half of the ribbon cable connector which is attached to the ribbon cable can then be mated with the half of the connector permanently mounted on the board so as to provide a connection to another circuit board or device.
Sometimes after the components have been assembled on a circuit board, the functionality of the circuit is corrected, modified, added to or reduced by adding and/or removing components, connections to components, other circuit boards and/or connections to other circuit boards. For example, the functionality of the device using the circuit board may be changed as when a personal computer is upgraded or additional peripherals are added. In such circumstances, there is a need for a means to easily modify connections to components which have been mounted on a circuit board. As will be appreciated, it is often found that once the circuit board has been placed inside the device in which it is to operate it is not practical to access the input/output connectors to make such modifications. In addition, it often is desirable to be able to mount additional circuit boards in the device even though all the circuit board mounting slots are occupied.